<p>i think we need to relax people... Sam, i'm not sure why you insist on trying to incite/provoke me or others into needless flaming, by accusing me of "attacking" others?</p>
<p>i also agree with agoodfella that if you are making claims about a certain/specific dataset, please feel free to analyze it and come back to us and tell us what you find. </p>
<p>why do i (or should i) back up a claim that you are making?</p>
<p>Cornell has 7 distinct undergraduate colleges, with separate admissions. Only 2 of these colleges send appreciable numbers of students to law schools. and these 2 colleges themselves differ somewhat in admissions standards and the profiles of their student bodies.</p>
<p>A high school student can apply to only one of these colleges, and what that student might reasonably be concerned about is how does this one college stack up? Not how does some non-existent, fictitious amalgam of all of Cornell's colleges in aggregate stack up. Because he can't apply to all of them. Only one.</p>
<p>Unfortunately the disaggregated data is not available. But it seems obvious that if you eliminated 5 of its seven undergrad colleges from the denominator one would get a materially different %. And this would be more comparable to most of the other colleges on the list that don't have these other 5 colleges with their distinct missions and standards. I wouldn't think this point would be disputed or difficult to grasp.</p>
<p>Even if you did this, it would still not completely help an applicant fairly compare Cornell's College of Arts & Sciences to, say, Dartmouth. Because their data would be confounded with that of the College of Industrial Labor Relations, which is a separate college there with its own separate admissions,curriculum and student profile. ILR sends more kids to law school, percentagewise, no doubt. Not necessarily the same law schools though, in the same percentages. One doesn't know; no data. It is a small school compared to Arts. But the point is, it is truly a different school. There is no good purpose served in meshing the numbers together of these two different schools. An applicant to undergrad can only apply to one of them, and they are different.</p>
<p>I'm sure a number of other of the universities listed have issues of this nature, but to various and different extents which makes direct comparison inappropriate to a degree. Which is why lists like this must be read with a grain of salt, or at least with explicit consideration given to these confounding issues.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"it's just not as good as its other Ivy peers (plus Stanford) when it comes to matriculation into the absolute top tier law schools. period"
[/quote]
I also disagree, like many others here.</p>
<p>To illustrate my point, I bring up another similar ranking:</p>
<p>Programs Sending the Largest Proportion of History Majors on to PhDs
School<br>
Ratio PhDs w. BAs from School to Total BAs
Wesleyan University* 16/100
University of Chicago* 16/100
Pomona College 15/100
Bryn Mawr College 15/100
Swarthmore College 15/100
Wellesley College 15/100
Reed College 14/100
Johns Hopkins University 13/100
Oberlin College* 13/100
Stanford University* 11/100
Mount Holyoke College 11/100
Smith College 11/100
Cornell University* 11/100
Kalamazoo College 11/100
Carleton College 11/100
Earlham College 10/100
Amherst College 10/100
Grinnell College 10/100
Harvard University* 9/100
Brown University* 9/100
Macalester College 9/100
Georgetown University* 9/100
Lawrence University 9/100
Yale University* 9/100
Rice University 9/100</p>
<p>See here, Harvard and Yale actually ranks pretty low compared to many other schools in the percentage which is also the criteria you used in your ranking. So using the same logic, my conclusion is that:</p>
<p>Wesleyan is better at matriculating students into History PhD programs than is Harvard and Yale. </p>
<p>So are you going to conceed that?</p>
<p>Well, history PhD program versus HLS and YLS...hmmm, which is something more competetive students want to do</p>
<p>anyways the above proves nothing. what undergrad send the most to the very top phd programs?</p>
<p>Competitive architecture students do not want to go to HLS or YLS, generally. At least I never met one that did. And I've known more than most people would. Relatively few competitive engineers want to, percentagewise. And not many students whose primary interest is Agriculture care to go to HLS. Law just doesn't float their boat.</p>
<p>But all those people are lumped into Cornell's denominator.</p>
<p>A few points:</p>
<p>1) Where are your links to support your data
2) You are mixing LACs and Universities (something I did not do).</p>
<p>Here are the Universities (stripping out LACs) that are ahead of Harvard:</p>
<p>University of Chicago* 16/100
Johns Hopkins University 13/100
Stanford University* 11/100
Cornell University* 11/100</p>
<p>3) AND MOST IMPORTANT POINT. WHICH SCHOOLS ARE THEY GETTING THEIR PHDs FROM? At the end of the day, if its just a laundry list of PhD's at ANY random school - really, who cares?</p>
<p>Remember, getting a law degree from Harvard or Yale Law School isn't a law degree from Slippery Rock U. My list analyzed those schools that matriculated into Harvard and Yale not anybody just getting a law degree anywhere.</p>
<p>So, short answer is NO. I'm not conceding anything.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think we would all agree that the best measure of how well a particular undergraduate school does at placing their graduates at top law schools would be yield -- how many students applied versus how many were admitted.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, I would be one to disagree. There is a big difference between those who are interested in something and those who actually apply for that thing. Just because you want something doesn't mean that you're going to apply. </p>
<p>To give you an example, I remember back in my undergrads that there were a LOT of engineers who were getting less than 2.5 GPA's who would have loved to go to Harvard Law. But come on, they're not going to apply. Let's face it. If you have a GPA less than 2.5, even from an extremely difficult major like engineering, you're not going to apply to Harvard Law, or any top law school for that matter, because you know darn well that you won't get in. So why waste your time and money in even applying? </p>
<p>But that doesn't mean that they wouldn't want to go. For example, consider the thought exercise where Harvard Law 'miraculously' handed out admit letters to these people - do you think any of them would turn it down? I think very few would, simply because going to Harvard Law, even if they ended up graduating last in their class, is still probably better than what they could get with an engineering degree with less than a 2.5. Somebody with, say, a 3.8 in engineering might happily turn down admission to Harvard Law because he has a bright future in engineering ahead of him - he can probably get a plum engineering job or get into a top engineering PhD program, etc. But come on, if you have a 2.5 or less? Clearly you're not having fun in engineering, and your future in engineering isn't bright. </p>
<p>Nor is this argument specific to engineering. I think it's safe to say that anybody who is getting a 2.5 or less, regardless of major, is probably not going to have a bright future in that field and is not enjoying it. To these people, anything else is probably better than being stuck in their field. Graduating last in your class at Harvard Law is still better than trying to pursue a career with a 2.5 in 'Peace and Conflict Studies'. </p>
<p>Hence, what you have is an interesting paradox. It seems to me that the people who are MOST interested in going to Harvard Law are also the LEAST likely to apply. Or, in other words, the people who are least likely to get in are also the most likely to want to get in. </p>
<p>What you would really want to measure is the number of people who actually WANT to get in (regardless of whether they apply or not) vs. the number of people who actually do get in. Obviously this is impossible to measure perfectly. But it would be the truly most relevant statistic. </p>
<p>I have a feeling that Cornell, like many other tech schools, has a lot of 'desperate engineers' - engineering students with low grades who would love to go to Harvard Law or some other top law school if, for no other reason, than to simply reset the clock and give them a chance at another career, as they should know that they are probably not going to have great careers as engineers.</p>
<p>Every time you say something like this I have to scratch my head. My own personal experience with engineers I've studied and worked with over the years could not possibly be more contrary to these assertions you make of this type. I've hardly known any engineers who had the slightest interest in law. Many of them have, in fact a sort of contempt for these sorts of "artsy" ie not quantitative or mathematically complex,endeavors.</p>
<p>I sincerely doubt that most of these people would turn to law as a preference matter if they turned out not to be any good at engineering. There are probably 50 occupations they'd prefer first. These are very diametrically different occupations. If you took a Strong vocational Interest test, these two groups would probably be on opposite sides of the page. IMO.</p>
<p>The relevance of this to, say, someone considering matriculating at U Chicago vs. Cornell's College of Arts & Sciences, also is not apparent to me. Neither of these schools has engineers. Cornelll's college of engineering is a different college, with different admissions. So from an applicant's perspective this should not enter into the equation.</p>
<p>THe problem as I see it comes in when different colleges, who happen to be in the same place but have different students, are inappropriately combined. Despite the fact that their admissions are not combined.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I have a feeling that Cornell, like many other tech schools, has a lot of 'desperate engineers' - engineering students with low grades who would love to go to Harvard Law or some other top law school if, for no other reason, than to simply reset the clock and give them a chance at another career, as they should know that they are probably not going to have great careers as engineers.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Fully agree. and the point is that we shouldn't just single out Cornell, this is likely true for many students across the top tier universities. A free admissions ticket to Harvard Law School is something that very few people would just burn - regardless of what your current or future plans are.</p>
<p>take me for example. even though i have had an extremely successful career in finance and am very happy with my Wharton MBA degree, if i were to go back in time (even knowing what i know now) and i was given a chance to go to Harvard Law School instead of Wharton, I'd do it in a heartbeat. </p>
<p>people probably don't know this but most Harvard Law students look down upon their fellow Harvard Business School students - and generally have good reason to -> the typical HLS student is flat out smarter than your typical HBS student.</p>
<p>UVA Law #s, which is an extremely prestigious law school</p>
<p>the_prestige,</p>
<p>I did <em>not</em> say you attacked gomestar; I said you distorted his statement and then talked about how "his" statement was incorrect. You did it to him and now did the same to me. Very clever. ;)</p>
<p>Sam, the burden of proof still stands on your shoulders. </p>
<p>I stick by the conclusions of my "back of the envelope" calculations as a reliable proxy for determining the best schools for those students looking to go to Harvard or Yale Law.</p>
<p>You say that looking at GPAs, LSATs, yield #s will produce something radically different.</p>
<p>So PROVE IT. Why do I need to prove YOUR assertions?</p>
<p>Or are you backing off those claims now?</p>
<p>Sam - This is the internet. Doesn't everybody do that?</p>
<p>generally have good reason to -> the typical HLS student is flat out smarter than your typical HBS student.</p>
<p>this is typically true for every place</p>
<p>Columbia Law is much more competitive than Columbia MBA
Northwestern law is more competitive than Northwestern MBA
Penn Law is much more competitive than Wharton MBA</p>
<p>etc.....</p>
<p>I cheerfully concede that there are plenty of people who have no interest in going to law school. I concede that universities with large proportions of such people (like Caltech) will send very few students to law school. However, I do not concede that it matters whether a broadly-based university organizes itself into one school with many departments, or many separate schools. The mix of students need not change at all. So, if one were to compare two colleges with the same mix of majors, but one was organized into separate schools and one was not, then I don't think this difference matters at all.</p>
<p>Specifically for Cornell, since this has become a focus, they graduate about 3,500 students. Of these, fewer than 200 of these are in hotel management, which is in part a business program. Lots of undergrads from business programs go to law school. Similarly, the largest group of agriculture students get degrees in agricultural business- still fewer than 200. By comparison, Brown, with far fewer students, awards more degrees in visual and performing arts. Another group who are unlikely to head to law school.</p>
<p>So, again, colleges attract students with different interests, but unless you are talking about Parsons or Caltech. the significance of this effect is limited.</p>
<p>Of course, none of this tells anyone whether a high school student of given talents and work habits would be more likely to get into a top law school by attending Harvard or Berkeley.</p>
<p>The organization into different colleges is relevant when these colleges have separate admissions practices and standards. </p>
<p>I'm sure that admissions people at leading grad and professional schools well understand that these colleges, and their average matriculants and programs of study, are not identically the same. Because they're not.</p>
<p>If they give "points" to different colleges, it's highly likely IMO that the points that they allot to the different colleges at Cornell are not necessarily the same. THe incoming stats aren't the same.</p>
<p>"So, if one were to compare two colleges with the same mix of majors.. [snipped]"</p>
<p>This is a second issue. The mix of majors elsewhere is not the same as Cornell's. Taking the university as a whole.</p>
<p>If you care enough (I don't) just strip out the extraneous 5 colleges, which consist entirely of majors that for example U Chicago doesn't have, few of whom apply to law school,and look at the differences in the resulting
percentages.</p>
<p>It's really pretty obvious.</p>
<p>Well, as noted, not that that large a proportion of Cornell students major in those fields that are unlikely to lead to law school. Other colleges have such majors as well, some have higher proportions of students who are in majors unlikely to lead to law school, and not all of the majors mentioned at Cornell are accurately described as not leading to law. </p>
<p>My professional school does not distinguish between the various schools at Cornell in admissions. We look at the courses students took, their grades, test scores, recommendations, and any other relevant factors. Which school at Cornell they attend never comes up, because no one thinks it matters. I have learned more about the distinctions in this discussion than I ever paid attention to in admissions. We certainly do not attempt to determine the admissions standards at one Cornell school vs another.</p>
<p>afan, what professional school do u represent
to monydad, i know 3 ppl in Hum Ec this past yr that ended up at law school</p>
<p>to columbia, uva, and duke, and i only knew of like 4 of 5 graduating hum ec ppl</p>
<p>Policy analysis and management is a major in HumEc that does send a good amount of people to law schools. The rest, not so much. </p>
<p>Same for ILR ... I knew 3 seniors last year who are at Harvard Law as we speak.</p>
<p>bananainpyjamas,</p>
<p>He just did it AGAIN...lol! Look:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Compare to my original:
[quote]
I said GPAs vs LSAT vs admit rates for all the different schools would give much more valid comparison.
[/quote]
</p>